- Escobar: Yemen Ready To Stare Down A New Imperial Coalition
Escobar: Yemen Ready To Stare Down A New Imperial Coalition
No one ever lost money betting on the ability of the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder to construct a “coalition of the willing” whenever faced with a geopolitical quandary.
In every case, duly covered by the reigning “rules-based international order”, “willing” applies to vassals seduced by carrots or sticks to follow to the letter the Empire’s whims.
Cue to the latest chapter: Coalition Genocide Prosperity, whose official – heroic – denomination, a trademark of the Pentagon’s P.R. wizards, is “Operation Prosperity Guardian”, allegedly engaged in “ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.”
Translation: this is Washington all but declaring war on Yemen’s Ansarullah. An extra US destroyer has already been dispatched to the Red Sea.
Ansarullah sticks to its guns and is by no means intimidated. The Houthi military have already stressed that any attack on Yemeni assets or Ansarullah missile launch sites would color the entire Red Sea literally Red.
The Houthi military not only reaffirmed it has “weapons to sink your aircraft carriers and destroyers” but made a stunning call to both Sunnis and Shi’ites in Bahrain to revolt and overthrow their King, Hamad al-Khalifa.
As of Monday, even before the start of the operation, the Eisenhower aircraft carrier was around 280 km off the closest Ansarullah controlled latitudes. Houthis have Zoheir and Khalij-e-Fars anti-ship ballistic missiles with a range of 300 to 500 km.
Ansarullah Supreme Political Council member Muhammad al-Bukhaiti felt compelled to re-stress the obvious: “Even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world, our operations in the Red Sea will not stop unless the massacre in Gaza stops. We will not give up the responsibility of defending the Moustazafeen (oppressed ones) of the Earth.”
The world better get ready: “Aircraft carrier sunk” may become the new 9/11.
Shipping in the Red Sea Remains Open
Weapons peddler Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin, in his current revolving door position as head of the Pentagon, is visiting West Asia – mostly Israel, Qatar and Bahrain – to promote this new “international initiative” for patrolling the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb strait (which links the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea) and the Gulf of Aden.
As al-Bukhaiti remarked, Ansarullah’s strategy is to target any ship navigating the Red Sea linked to Israeli companies or supplying Israel – something that for the Yemenis demonstrates their complicity with the Gaza genocide. That will only stop when the genocide stops.
With a single move – a de facto maritime blockade – Ansarullah proved that the King is Naked: Yemen has done more in practice to defend the Palestinian cause than most of the key regional players put together. Incidentally, they were all ordered by Netanyahu in public to shut up. And they did.
It’s quite instructive to once again follow the money. Israel has been hit very hard. The port of Eilat is virtually closed, and its income fell by 80%.
For instance, Taiwanese shipping giant Yang-Ming Marine Transport Corporation originally planned to re-route its Israel-bound cargo to the port of Ashdod. Then it cut off any shipments to any Israeli destination.
It’s no wonder Yoram Sebba, President of the Israel Chamber of Shipping, revealed himself to be puzzled by Ansarullah’s “complex” tactics and “unrevealed” criteria that have imposed “total uncertainty”. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have also been caught in the Yemeni net.
It’s crucial to keep in perspective that Ansarullah only blocks ships that are going to Israel. The bulk of maritime shipping in the Red Sea remains wide open.
So shipping giant Maersk’s decision not to use the Red Sea, alongside other global shipping behemoths, may be pushing the envelope too fast – as in nearly begging for a US-led patrol to be in effect.
Enter CTF 153
So far, on one side we have Yemen virtually ruling the Red Sea. On the other side, we find UAE-Saudi-Jordan tandem, in the form of an – alternative – cargo land corridor set up from the port of Jebel Ali in the Persian Gulf across Saudi Arabia to Jordan and then Israel.
The corridor uses logistical tech from Trucknet: that’s truck-based overland connectivity in practice, reducing transport time from 14 days via the Red Sea to a maximum of 4 days on the road, 300 trucks a day, everyday.
Jordan of course is in, operating the trans-shipment from the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The overarching framework for all this is the One Israel plan, enthusiastically promoted by Netanyahu, whose key aim is a link with the Arabian peninsula and most of all the NEOM tech metropolis to be built theoretically up to 2039 in the northwestern Tabuk province in Saudi Arabia, north of the Red Sea, east of Egypt across the Gulf of Aqaba, and south of Jordan.
NEOM is MbS’s project to modernize the country, which is incidentally bound to feature Israel-operated AI cities.
This is what Riyadh is really betting on, much more than developing closer relations with Iran under the framework of BRICS+. Or to care about the future of Palestine.
On the planned naval blockade of Yemen though, the Saudis were way more circumspect. Even as Tel Aviv directly asked the White House to do something, anything, Riyadh “advised” Washington to exercise some restraint.
Yet as few things matter most for the Straussian neocon psychos who currently direct US policy than to protect the trade interests in the Red Sea of its aircraft-carrier in West Asia, the decision to set up a “coalition” was all but inevitable.
Enter the latest – actually fourth – incarnation of the Combined Maritime Force (CMF): a multinational coalition from 39 nations established in 2002 and led by the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
The task force already exists: it’s CTF 153, focusing on “international maritime security and capacity building efforts in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden”. That’s the basis for Coalition Genocide Prosperity.
Members of CTF 153 include, apart from the usual suspects US, UK, France and Canada, Europeans such as Norway, Italy, Netherlands and Spain, superpower Seychelles and Bahrain (the Fifth Fleet element).
Saudi Arabia and UAE, crucially, are not members. They know, after a seven-year war, when they were part of another “coalition” (the US was sort of “leading from behind”) what it means to fight Ansarullah.
All Aboard the Northern Sea Route
If the Red Sea situation turns really red, it will instantly shatter the Riyadh-Sanaa ceasefire. The White House and the US Deep State simply do not want a peace deal. They want Saudi Arabia at war with Yemen.
The Red Sea turned red will also send the global energy crisis into a tailspin. After all at least four million barrels of oil and 12% of total global seaborne-trade to the West transits the Bab al-Mandeb every single day.
So once again we have graphic confirmation that the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder only calls for ceasefires when it’s losing badly: see the Ukraine case.
Yet no ceasefire in Gaza – supported by the overwhelming majority if UN member-states – runs the risk of metastasizing into an expansion of the war in West Asia.
That may fit into the clumsy imperial rationale of setting West Asia on fire to disturb China’s commercial BRI drive and the entry of Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE into the expanded BRICS next month. Simultaneously, and in tune with the absence of real strategic planning in Washington, that does not take into consideration an array of appalling, unintended consequences.
So according to imperial optics, the only path ahead is further militarization – from the Mediterranean to the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. That fits exactly into the framework of the War of Economic Corridors.
An axiom should be set in stone: Washington would rather bet on a possible, deep global recession than simply allowing a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The recession may well turbo-charge a widespread economic collapse of the collective West, and an even more rapid rise of multipolarity.
To offer much needed relief of so much insanity: almost casually, President Putin recently remarked that the Northern Sea Route is now becoming a more efficient maritime trade corridor than the Suez Canal.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 23:40 - Visualizing The Global Coffee Trade
Visualizing The Global Coffee Trade
From drip coffees to decadent lattes, every cup of coffee begins its journey from the humble coffee bean. A massive global coffee trade moves these beans from farms in one country to cafes in another.
In this piece, Airi Ryu uses data from Chatham House’s resourcetrade.earth to track the global trade of unroasted and non-decaffeinated coffee beans in 2019, highlighting the world’s top coffee exporters and importers.
The Biggest Exporters in the Global Coffee Trade
Close to 84% of the world’s coffee bean exports come from just 10 countries.
All these countries are found in the “Bean Belt” between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn where coffee grows best. These top coffee-producing nations include Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia.
Here are the top coffee exporting nations in 2019:
The South American nations of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru export nearly 42% of the global coffee beans. Brazil exported over 2.2 million tonnes in 2019 alone, more than a quarter of the global coffee trade.
Across the Pacific, Vietnam and Indonesia together exported 23.4% of the world’s coffee beans in 2019. Other major exporters include the Central American nations of Honduras and Guatemala, which combined for 8.7% of global coffee bean exports, and the African nations Uganda and Ethiopia with 6.7% combined.
Biggest Coffee Bean Importers, By Country
On the other side of the global coffee trade are nations with high demand for coffee dominating import shares. Many of these importing nations also re-export coffee beans to other parts of the world under their own local brands.
Here are the top coffee importing nations in 2019:
The U.S. is the largest importer of coffee beans in the world, bringing in 1.5 million tonnes of unroasted coffee beans in 2019, equivalent to 19.3% of all exports that year. While Brazil and Colombia are its biggest sources of coffee, beans imported from Asia and Central America also thrive thanks to a strong specialty coffee culture.
Europe is also a massive destination for coffee bean exports. Germany led the way with 14.2% of global coffee imports, while Italy accounted for 8.3%.
A brewing coffee culture in Japan has made the country a major player in the global coffee trade. In 2019, Japan was the fourth-largest coffee bean importer in the world and far and away the leading importer in Asia.
As the desire for coffee continues to permeate throughout the world, and as climate change puts a strain on coffee production (and vice versa), the flows of coffee beans are sure to change in the coming decades.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 23:20 - 2023: Goodbye To All That
2023: Goodbye To All That
Authored by Clive Hale via ‘The View From The Bridge’,
“There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.”
Forecasts create the mirage that the future is knowable – Peter Bernstein
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said, “the central bank isn’t really discussing cutting interest rates right now.” Are they, or aren’t they? Who knows? (Ed)
“Banks don’t go out of business taking risk, they go out of business levering the things that they’re told aren’t risky.” David Dredge on Grant Williams podcast https://www.grant-williams.com/podcast/dave-dredge-2/
Tell me more about the disinflation…
“The problem is that by forcing prices into unnatural places for too long the manipulators interfere with this thing we call reality.” Chris Martenson
In our line of work, there is a common saying: the market can stay irrational longer than one can stay solvent.
Lately, it appears we should revise the ending of that saying to include “or sane.”
Having priced in nearly double the number of rate cuts given by the Fed’s forward guidance for 2024 (-140 bps vs. -75 bps), the market has declared the inflation problem solved and the glidepath to a goldilocks economy all but certain. Stuck in yesteryear’s paradigm of inflation, rates, and earnings multiple revaluation, risk assets have melted up in a crazed frenzy. John Authers – Bloomberg
“Many of those numbers are not really true – look at inflation. If there is anybody who believes that inflation is what they publish, you know, you cannot be serious. Of course, inflation is another number. My inflation is probably 10% of my basket of goods and services I consume, and so it is for many other people, so I think the numbers are made up, you know.
The shelter part of the CPI is a problem, and it is exaggerated on the downside, and recently they exchanged what was it health care insurance premiums for healthcare insurance profits of those companies – I mean, it’s ridiculous. So I think inflation is in fact higher, and that would mean that a higher and higher percentage of the US consumer is struggling, is struggling more than what the statistics tell us, and credit card delinquencies are probably pointing in that direction.”
– Felix Zulauf on Grant Williams podcast https://www.grant-williams.com/podcast/felix-zulauf-2023/
John Williams agrees with Felix’s 10% inflation rate. The CPI on the Alternate Data Series, shown below, reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980. In general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.
“The percentage of companies with strong/healthy Altman Z-scores (which combine account profitability, leverage, liquidity, solvency, activity ratios, etc. to measure bankruptcy risk) has dropped below 10% for first time on record” John Authers – Bloomberg
On the FEDeral Reserve: We have to get away from this PhD standard, the improvisation of our monetary masters who, having earned a doctorate in economics, they think they know things they cannot possibly know.
From a former BoE governor Mervyn King –
” If you look at the computer models, which not just the bank of England, but other central banks use, whatever you do to monetary policy, inflation always comes back to 2%. Why does it do that? Because the model says it has to, it’s built in, it’s an assumption.”
Got gold?
It may seem quaint, but there was a time pre-1971 when you could divide the monetary aggregates (there are several) by the amount of gold held by the US Treasury and you would derive the reference price of $35/oz.
And in 1980 when gold soared to $800/oz the dollar was 100% backed by the gold the US held.
What is shocking is the amount of paper money created since that time frame.
If one were to do the same calculation today (monetary aggregates/gold ounces held by the US Treasury) it would take a gold price of $80,000/oz to balance the equation.
A far cry from today’s $1,950/oz.
Mark Twain was right “One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again.” – Thomas Sowell
Think about this one… “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” – Richard Feynman
If your system of government relies upon the sagacity and ethics of the leaders who run it to keep you safe and free, you are engaging in utopian thinking and you’re going to get the tyranny you deserve.
Oh dear…😯
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Stephen Hawking
And finally, a thought to carry into 2024 and beyond
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
* * *
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 23:00 - Nikki Haley Tries To Tie Putin To Israel Attackers, Says Gazans Should Be Resettled In 'Pro-Hamas Countries'
Nikki Haley Tries To Tie Putin To Israel Attackers, Says Gazans Should Be Resettled In ‘Pro-Hamas Countries’
Two ultra controversial and somewhat bizarre statements from Nikki Haley this week on the Israel-Hamas war… first, the Republican presidential candidate lashed out at what she called the “pro-Hamas” countries of Iran, Qatar, and Turkey in a fresh ABC News interview.
She said these countries, given their well-known ‘support’ to the terror group, should take in all Palestinians fleeing the war in Gaza. During the discussion Haley was asked where the war refugees in Gaza should go. She responded: “They should be going to the Rafah gate and [have] Egypt take them.” That’s when she added the controversial statement, “But I’ve always said that what you should have is that they should go to pro-Hamas countries — Qatar, Iran, Turkey… send them there… Those are pro-Hamas countries.” Watch:
“Palestinians should go to pro Hamas countries” @NikkiHaley uncensored and unafraid to say it like it is. She’s so right. pic.twitter.com/StNZCULsFd
— Michal/Michele -מיכל✡️ 🟦 (@MichalSabra) December 21, 2023
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“Why won’t Egypt take them? Because they don’t trust which ones are terrorists and which ones aren’t? It’s a sad state of affairs, but the reality of that evil is very clear in Arab countries too. Arab countries have very much always been cautious and know the threats that Iran can place,” she posed further.
“They don’t want those terrorist proxies coming after them…”. And more from her commentary:
“Why isn’t everybody talking to Egypt? Why aren’t they talking to Turkey? Why aren’t they talking to Qatar? Why aren’t they talking to Iran? Why aren’t they doing something to help the Palestinians? Why is it that you come back to Israel and the US? It’s always the case.”
“If [the October 7 attack] had happened to America, do you not think that we would have hit back?” asks Haley, who is trying to pull off an improbable primary win over GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
Even before the crisis which kicked off with the Oct.7 Hamas attacks, Haley has long been a staunch supporter of Israel and has advocated for keeping up maximal US defense and foreign aid. Israel remains the biggest recipient, at over $3 billion annually. In this case, the Netanyahu government would likely agree with her, given it’s been trying to press Egypt to take in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and place then in tent cities in the Sinai desert.
Second, she also had some interesting (ahem) things to say about an alleged Putin-Hamas connection at a recent campaign rally…
“Hamas invaded Israel on October 7th, October 7th is Putin’s birthday,” Haley told a crowd of supporters.
Nikki Haley is now psychotically claiming that Putin’s birthday is on Oct 7 & that’s somehow related to Hamas’ attack on Israel.
You can see the $$ signs flashing in her eyes. She needs to publish her tax returns & clients of her defense contractor – now.
Roll that log over… https://t.co/s0rfS7sWJL
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 21, 2023
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As for her identifying ‘Hamas-supporting’ regional countries, while Qatar and Iran’s financial support has long been well known, Turkey has of late been the most vociferous in denouncing and attacking the Israeli government for the massive amounts of civilian casualties in Gaza due to its air and ground campaign.
President Erdogan is vowing to get Israeli leaders hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Geneva, though Turkey itself is not a signatory to ICC founding documents.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 22:40 - WorldCoin Halts Iris-Scanning In India, Brazil, & France
WorldCoin Halts Iris-Scanning In India, Brazil, & France
Authored by David Attlee via CoinTelegraph,com,
Amid its ongoing streak of expansions and collaborations, Worldcoin has reportedly rolled back one of its core functions in three markets…
Worldcoin has shut off its offline orb verification function for users in three markets: India, Brazil, and France, a report by Moneycontrol on Dec. 21 says.
A five-pound chromatic helmet that scans individuals’ eyeballs to verify their identities, the Orb was conceived by Worldcoin as a tool for onboarding the inhabitants of those regions where traditional ID is not always available.
The company stimulated the offline onboarding process by offering rewards in USDC for local Orb operators.
Starting in November, Worldcoin began paying the rewards in its native token, WLD.
According to Moneycontrol, Worldcoin “silently discontinued” the orb verification process in India “3-4 months ago,” despite the crowds gathering in queues for Orb operators in some parts of the country. However, Tools for Humanity, the foundation overseeing Worldcoin, explained that from the start, the Orb was a “limited-time access” initiative in India, France, and Brazil.
Cointelegraph has contacted Worldcoin for further details but hasn’t yet received a response.
The onboarding process, which involves gathering private data such as the iris scan, has led Worldcoin into numerous public controversies.
Critics have repeatedly suggested that the project, launched by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, is ethically questionable and contains the makings of a “dystopian nightmare.”
Regulators have been skeptical as well. German financial authorities launched a probe into Worldcoin in 2022, while the United Kingdom’s data regulatory body also threatened investigations in the days after the project’s launch. Kenya has outright banned Worldcoin’s activity in the country.
In August, security platform CertiK reported a vulnerability in the vetting processes for Orb operators that could have allowed an attacker to bypass the verification process and operate an Orb without being interviewed or having a proper ID.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 22:20 - Gun Owners Of America's 2023 Victories Against Anti-Gunners
Gun Owners Of America’s 2023 Victories Against Anti-Gunners
Submitted by Gun Owners of America,
This year has been full of fights over the Second Amendment. In 2023, the anti-gun billionaires, with their allies in the White House and Congress, have waged a non-stop battle on your right to own a firearm. Whether in the Legislature or the court system, Gun Owners of America has fought back.
Thanks to your support, Gun Owners of America proudly reports that we secured some huge wins this year.
So, let’s recap the highlights of 2023 as we get ready for the battles ahead in 2024.
First, GOA and our members secured a major win, being instrumental in passing Rep Andrew Clyde’s H.J.Res. 44, which told ATF their pistol brace rule did not have the support of Congress.
The passing of H.J. Res. 44 signals to the ATF and the courts that their pistol brace rule is not constitutional. In addition, our lawsuit, GOA & Texas v. ATF, halted the rule nationwide.
In recent news, GOA members absolutely flooded the Federal Register with over 85 THOUSAND comments on ATF’s new universal registration check rule. This massive rush of comments completely smashed our previous record by more than 20 thousand.
These comments could severely affect ATF’s proposed rule. But when it does become law, GOA stands ready to fight ATF in the courts, using our members’ comments as evidence of harm.
But it hasn’t been all fights against the ATF; Gun Owners of America has also kept Congress in line.
One of the most significant victories this year was removing the Permanent Reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act from the National Defense Authorization Act, also known as the bill that funds the military.
This Undetectable Firearms Act is now scheduled to expire on February 2nd, and we’re now preparing to fight to end the law for good.
We also defeated attempts to package an Assault Weapons Ban, Universal Background Checks, and a Separate 3D printing ban into other pieces of legislation. Thanks to our friends in Congress like Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ted Budd, and Senator John Barrasso, we were able to block anti-gun Senators from putting these laws into “must-pass” bills.
The VA’s fiduciary rule, which GOA has fought for years, stripped veterans of their 2A rights simply for getting a financial advisor. This law is in dire straits, thanks to Chairman Mike Bost and Senator John Kennedy!
Meanwhile, in the courts, we won a massive victory in Oregon, where we were granted a permanent injunction against Oregon Ballot Measure 114. This unconstitutional measure passed by a slim margin of about 1% and imposed fingerprinting, firearm registration, and magazine bans.
In addition, our New York case, Antonyuk v. Hochul, won a partial—yet significant—victory!
Earlier in December, a federal circuit court confirmed a federal injunction against some portions of New York’s unconstitutional concealed carry law.
This law would severely restrict where gun owners can carry firearms in public and allow the government to monitor concealed carry permit applicants’ social media history.
If New York’s law is allowed to stand, other anti-gun cities and states will quickly follow New York’s lead by making nearly all public places off-limits to concealed carry.
It’s vital that we win a complete victory in this case.
That’s why GOA will be appealing the ruling straight to the US Supreme Court!
We’ve also been suing and winning against the ATF’s new Zero Tolerance policy, which we leaked earlier this year. We’re fighting against a rogue ATF that aims to put your local gun dealer out of business for minor innocuous paperwork errors, an obvious backdoor gun control move by the Biden Administration.
Thank you for a great 2023. Here’s to us in 2024 continuing the fight for the Second Amendment!
* * *
We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 21:40 - What's Your US Income Percentile?
What’s Your US Income Percentile?
Where do you fall on the distribution of income in the United States?
The nice people over at Political Calculations blog can help you answer this question using the data that the U.S. Census Bureau has collected on the total money income earned by individual Americans as well as for the families and households into which Americans gather themselves!
If you’re a visual person, we’ll first present the U.S. income distribution information in three charts presenting the cumulative distribution of income for U.S. individuals, U.S. households, and U.S. families.
To use these charts, first find the income that applies for you on the horizontal axis, then move directly upward to the curve that defines the cumulative distribution of income. Once you’ve found your place on S-shaped curve in each chart, look directly to the vertical scale on the left hand side of the chart to determine your approximate U.S. income percentile ranking. Each of the charts will be displayed for five seconds and will cycle back to the beginning after running through each of the charts. The charts will also indicate the median and average income earned by each category.
Now, let’s find out more precisely where you really fit into the 2022 distribution of income! To find out where you, your family or your household ranks among each of these categories, just enter your personal income, your family’s income, which includes the incomes of your spouse and other family members who live with you, and also the combined income of just the people who live within the walls of the same household that you do, into the following tool. We’ll do some quick math and provide a more better estimate of the percentage of all American individuals, families and households that you outrank given the incomes you enter than you can get from scanning the charts. We’ll also break down the numbers for your Individual income to tell you how you compare to your fellow male and female Americans.
Click on the calculator image below to access a working version of our tool.
Our tool should be able to place most people within half a percentile of their actual income percentile. A percentile of zero indicates that you are at the very bottom end of the U.S. income spectrum, while a percentile ranking of 100 indicates that you are effectively at the very top end. A percentile rank of 50.0 puts you at the median, where 50% of the U.S. population would have a higher income and 50% has a lower income.
For our readers who live outside of the United States, you can still get in on the action if you convert your income from your local currency into U.S. dollars first!
If you want a more precise estimate of your income percentile ranking within the U.S., please check out Don’t Quit Your Day Job’s Income Percentile Calculator. DQYDJ uses a more refined version of the U.S. Census Bureau’s income data to estimate the distribution of total money income within the United States, which means that compared to our tool, which will put you in the right seating section of the ballpark, PK’s tool can put you in the right row of that seating section.
Finally, if you’re looking for the income data for 2023, please note that the U.S. Census Bureau will report the data it collects for this year sometime in September 2024. The data for 2023 won’t even be collected until March 2024, when Americans will be preparing their income tax returns for the 2023 tax year and have all the records needed to do that. The Census Bureau’s statisticians will then take the next six months to analyze all the income data they collect before reporting their results.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 21:20 - Bills Filed In Oklahoma & Missouri Would Eliminate Capital Gains Tax On The Sale Of Gold & Silver
Bills Filed In Oklahoma & Missouri Would Eliminate Capital Gains Tax On The Sale Of Gold & Silver
Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com,
Bills filed in the Oklahoma and Missouri legislatures for the 2024 legislative session would eliminate state capital gains taxes on the sale of gold and silver. The legislation would also take other steps to treat gold and silver as money instead of as commodities.
In Missouri, Rep Doug Richey filed HB1867 on Dec. 11. Rep. Bill Hardwick filed HB1955 on Dec. 15. The bills are companions to SB735 filed in the Senate by Sen. William Eigel earlier this month.
In Oklahoma, Sen. Shane Jett filed SB1507 and Sen. Nathan Dahm is running SB1508.
The enactment of any of these bills would eliminate state capital gains taxes on the sale and exchange of gold and silver bullion.
Both of these states are already among the 42 that do not levy sales taxes on gold and silver bullion.
Exempting the sale of gold and silver bullion from taxes lowers the investment cost of precious metals. It also takes a step toward treating gold and silver as money instead of commodities. Taxes on precious metal bullion erect barriers to using gold and silver as money by raising transaction costs.
Imagine if you asked a grocery clerk to break a $5 bill and he charged you a 35-cent tax. Silly, right? After all, you were only exchanging one form of money for another. But that’s essentially what a sales tax on gold and silver bullion does. By eliminating this tax on the exchange of gold and silver, Missouri and Oklahoma would treat specie as money instead of a commodity. This represents a small step toward reestablishing gold and silver as legal tender and breaking down the Fed’s monopoly on money.
“We ought not to tax money – and that’s a good idea. It makes no sense to tax money,” former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul said during testimony in support of an Arizona bill that repealed capital gains taxes on gold and silver in that state. “Paper is not money, it’s fraud,” he continued.
The impact of enacting this legislation will go beyond mere tax policy. During an event after his Senate committee testimony, Paul pointed out that it’s really about the size and scope of government.
“If you’re for less government, you want sound money. The people who want big government, they don’t want sound money. They want to deceive you and commit fraud. They want to print the money. They want a monopoly. They want to get you conditioned, as our schools have conditioned us, to the point where deficits don’t matter.”
GOLD AND SILVER AS LEGAL TENDER
Under provisions in the Missouri bill, gold and silver in physical or electronic form would be accepted as legal tender and would be receivable in payment of all debts contracted for in the state of Missouri. The state would be required to accept gold and silver for the payment of public debts. Private debts could be settled in gold and silver at the parties’ discretion.
Practically speaking, this would allow Missourians to use gold or silver coins as money rather than just as mere investment vehicles. In effect, it would put gold and silver on the same footing as Federal Reserve notes.
Oklahoma took a similar step in 2014. Utah and Arkansas also consider gold and silver legal tender.
The proposed Missouri law also includes provisions authorizing the state to invest in gold or silver “greater than or equal to one percent of all state funds” and to expressly bar any state agency, department, or political subdivision from seizing gold or silver bullion.
BACKGROUND
The United States Constitution states in Article I, Section 10, “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” Currently, all debts and taxes in the US are either paid with Federal Reserve Notes (dollars) which were authorized as legal tender by Congress, or with coins issued by the US Treasury — very few of which have gold or silver in them.
The Federal Reserve destroys this constitutional monetary system by creating a monopoly based on its fiat currency. Without the backing of gold or silver, the central bank can easily create money out of thin air. This not only devalues your purchasing power over time; it also allows the federal government to borrow and spend far beyond what would be possible in a sound money system. Without the Fed, the US government wouldn’t be able to maintain all of its unconstitutional wars and programs. The Federal Reserve is the engine that drives the most powerful government in the history of the world.
Tax repeals knock down one of the tax barriers that hinder the use of gold and silver as money, and could also begin the process of abolishing the Federal Reserve’s fiat money system by attacking it from the bottom up – pulling the rug out from under it by working to make its functions irrelevant at the state and local levels, and setting the stage to undermine the Federal Reserve monopoly by introducing competition into the monetary system.
In a paper presented at the Mises Institute, Constitutional tender expert Professor William Greene said when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve Notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.
“Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.”
Once things get to that point, Federal Reserve notes would become largely unwanted and irrelevant for ordinary people.
These bills make up part of a broader movement at the state level to support sound money.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 21:00 - The Ultimate Way To Cut Out Sugar
The Ultimate Way To Cut Out Sugar
Authored by Flora Zhao via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
You may have thought of cutting back on or even quitting sugar. But how exactly should you go about it, and, more importantly, how can you achieve the greater goal of overcoming excessive cravings for sweetness?
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) From 2005 to 2009, at least 74 percent of packaged or processed foods contained added sugars. Even if you don’t have the habit of eating sweets, you may unintentionally consume sugar in excess. For instance, added sugars have dozens of names, so you might not even know you are eating them despite reading ingredient labels.
Nevertheless, quitting sugar is not an impossible mission. Many people face challenges not because they cannot quit but because they don’t know how or they set overly ambitious goals.
You can break it down into steps: First reduce sugar, then quit altogether, and eventually overcome sugar cravings.
The benefits of this approach are no different from quitting sugar directly. Dr. Jason Fung, a nephrologist specializing in reversing Type 2 diabetes and intermittent fasting, likened it to swimming. Some prefer easing into the water to adapt to the temperature, while others dive right in. Both approaches can achieve the same ultimate goal.
“Just like we advise people with any addiction,” Jessica Russo, a clinical psychologist in Philadelphia with a doctorate in psychology, told The Epoch Times, “every day, just [cut] your sugar down a little bit.”
“The process of quitting sugar is about retraining the palate,” said Lorenzo Cohen, professor and director of the integrative medicine program at MD Anderson Cancer Center, during an interview with The Epoch Times. Once people apply this, they will gradually discover that even items with very little sugar taste quite sweet, and unexpected changes will occur in the body.
The Epoch Times interviewed over a dozen experts and reviewed scientific studies to compile the most effective methods for quitting sugar.
Step 1: Reduce Sugar Intake
Avoid High-Sugar Foods
Reading labels is often the first habit many people adopt when quitting sugar or embarking on a diet. When reading labels, there are two key aspects to focus on: the ingredient list and the sugar content per 100 grams or serving.
“There’s more than 60 names for sugar,” Amy Gonzalez, a registered dietitian, told The Epoch Times.
These include barley malt, dextrose, sucrose, and rice syrup.
Sugar has over 60 names that could appear on food labels. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) Ms. Gonzalez stated that among these added sugars, those with high fructose content, such as high-fructose corn syrup and agave nectar, are more detrimental to the body. These may harm the liver and lead to insulin resistance.
“The food industry puts all these forms of sugar in our food and lists their chemical names on the package,” Laura Schmidt, professor of health policy at the University of California–San Francisco, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times. “This is confusing for people.”
Ms. Schmidt shared a simple way to identify sugar: Look for chemical names ending in “ose,” such as “lactose” (sugar in milk). They likely indicate sugar.
Another trick: “If a product has more than a few ingredients, and some are unfamiliar sounding, then just don’t eat it,” she added.
Even in foods that do not taste sweet, like crackers or salad dressings, you might still find sugar listed in the ingredients.
One tablespoon of Heinz Tomato Ketchup (17 grams) contains 4 grams of added sugar. A Big Mac from McDonald’s has 7 grams of added sugar. In a large Big Mac combo meal (with a large Coca-Cola and a large serving of fries), the total added sugar content reaches 84 grams. Even potato chips and other other savory snacks may contain sugar.
If the added sugar exceeds 20 percent, it is classified as a product with high added sugar product. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), if the added sugar in each serving of food is below 5 percent of the Daily Value (DV)—50 grams per day based on a 2,000-calorie diet—it is considered a product with low added sugar. If it exceeds 20 percent, it is regarded as a high-added sugar product.
As per the UK National Health Service (NHS), foods with less than 5 grams of sugar per 100 grams are categorized as low-sugar, those with sugar content ranging from 5 grams to 22.5 grams are classified as medium-sugar, and those exceeding 22.5 grams fall into the high-sugar category.
Dr. Becky Gillaspy, a chiropractic doctor and author of “Zero Sugar / One Month,” suggests a simpler approach: Avoid purchasing foods where sugar ranks among the top three ingredients on the food label (ingredients are typically listed in descending order of weight). Compared to using specific numerical criteria, this screening method is quicker and more convenient, effectively filtering out items with high added-sugar content, she said.
However, Ms. Gonzalez also emphasized the importance of learning all the names of sugar and reading the ingredient list from start to finish. This is crucial because, unfortunately, many food manufacturers use several different forms of sweeteners, which will move them further down the list.
Swap in Natural Sweeteners or Natural Sugars
Consuming sugar is, fundamentally, a pursuit of flavor. So why not satisfy that craving with natural sweetness, such as sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit? You can add them to your coffee and tea or use them in cooking.
Unlike refined sugar, stevia and monk fruit have a glycemic index (GI) of nearly zero. Many studies indicate their ability to stabilize blood sugar and even suggest potential benefits in managing diabetes. Additionally, stevia offers other benefits, such as reducing blood pressure and blood lipids, and possesses anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Monk fruit has also been found to be beneficial against conditions such as COVID-19 and cancer.
Satisfy cravings with natural sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit. (dedek/Shutterstock, Hajai Photo/Shutterstock) It is worth noting, however, that animal studies suggest eating stevia long-term may potentially have adverse effects on the liver and kidneys or alter the gut microbiome. These findings are contentious, as other research indicates stevia may benefit patients with chronic kidney disease and ameliorate liver and kidney damage. Researchers have suggested the effects of stevia may depend on how much you eat and what it is eaten with.
The sweetness of pure stevia and monk fruit is several hundred times that of regular sugar. The powdered forms commonly found in supermarkets are typically blended with base ingredients. For example, you might find a composition of 1 percent steviol glycosides mixed with 99 percent erythritol. This means that the usage and quantities of these products are similar to regular sugar. Nevertheless, reading the usage instructions on the packaging is advisable so you understand serving sizes. The same applies to liquid stevia and monk fruit products, where the recommended amounts may vary. For some, one drop might be equivalent to the sweetness of a teaspoon of sugar, while others may require 10 drops or a few milliliters.
Artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, sucralose, and saccharin, are commonly used as sugar substitutes in processed food and drinks labeled zero-sugar. However, numerous studies have found that these sweeteners can lead to metabolic syndromes, harm gut health, and may even be potentially carcinogenic.
Natural sugars are another excellent alternative. Honey, for example, while often equated with sugar, can actually help stabilize blood sugar when consumed in moderation. Moreover, honey has been used for thousands of years for its medicinal properties, particularly its antibacterial and antiviral effects. Certain types of honey, like Manuka, have a higher level of antibacterial properties compared to others. Collected from maple trees, maple syrup has a unique taste that captivates many and contains a rich array of nutrients. Coconut sugar is both anti-inflammatory and antioxidative, contributing to heart health.
A common practice is to use ½ to ⅔ cup of honey or ¾ cup of maple syrup to replace 1 cup (240 milliliters) of sugar.
Other ingredients also naturally carry a sweet taste. For example, Ms. Russo mentioned that licorice root has a natural sweetness and offers health benefits when used to make tea. Additionally, naturally sweet ingredients such as red dates and dried goji berries can be used to brew tea or soup that is both sweet and fragrant.
During interviews, many experts supported the idea of cooking at home as the safest and best way to avoid excess sugar. Choose natural, sugar-free ingredients like unsweetened yogurt and plain oats, and then sweeten with an appropriate amount of relatively natural sweeteners.
Replace Desserts With Fruits
Those with strong cravings for desserts and snacks can replace such treats with fresh fruits, said Dr. Luc Tappy, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physiology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in an email to The Epoch Times. The choice of fruits is generally not restricted.
Fruits come in abundant varieties, from common ones like blueberries and bananas to more exotic options like durian and mangosteen. Even the same type of fruit will come in different varieties in some tropical and temperate regions. The many kinds of desserts that can be made from these fruits are just as diverse. As you explore options, you will find that using these fruits can yield unexpectedly delightful flavors while satisfying your sweet tooth.
“The good things in fruit are far more important than the fruit sugar … in fruit,” Ellen Kampman, a nutritional epidemiologist and chair in nutrition and disease at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, told The Epoch Times. “So I’m not afraid that people might overeat [them].”
However, Dr. Tappy pointed out the importance of being mindful of portion sizes. Initially, when reducing sugar intake, consuming up to three servings of fresh fruits per day is recommended, which can later be reduced to two servings. A comprehensive study published in 2021 suggests that consuming two servings of fruits per day is ideal and healthy. One serving typically corresponds to one medium-sized piece of fruit or approximately 80 grams.
Dr. Fung warned that the fruits we consume today are generally much sweeter than 50 years ago, indicating increased sugar content. Individuals, especially those with blood sugar problems or a strong sugar addiction, should opt for low-GI fruits and avoid high-sugar fruits like grapes and bananas; the intense sweetness of such fruits may also trigger sugar cravings.
Cooking methods also impact fruit sugar content. Dried fruits shrink during the sun-drying or dehydration process. While eating one apple might fill you up, eating apple chips might lead you to easily eat two or three dehydrated apples without even realizing it. When consuming dried fruit, we must calculate based on the original size of the fruit. Fruit juice also concentrates sugars from multiple fruits while filtering out the dietary fiber. In an 8-ounce cup of orange juice, you are essentially getting the sugar and calories equivalent to three oranges.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 20:20 - Too Late For US Naval Deterrence In Red Sea After Biden Misled World On Houthi Attacks
Too Late For US Naval Deterrence In Red Sea After Biden Misled World On Houthi Attacks
It has become clear there’s a full-blown Houthi war on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Weeks ago, we featured commentary that cited US defense officials who were frustrated that the Pentagon was being held back from responding forcefully against Houthis positions in Yemen by the Biden White House.
President Biden stood accused of “downplaying” the threat, as statements in Politico have underscored, “Some current and former military officials were frustrated by the administration’s initial response to the Houthis’ Sunday attacks on the ships.” This as some top military brass pushed for a more forceful response, lest the Iranian proxies grow more emboldened.
But more emboldened is precisely what has happened, as container ships are coming under drone and missile attack on a daily basis at this point, triggering delays and rising prices on goods as major liners avoid Red Sea transit altogether.
USS Carney destroyer, via US Navy Fast-forward to this week, now nearing the end of December and The Wall Street Journal has run an alarming but apt headline this which spells out U.S. Naval Deterrence Is Going, Going, Maybe Even Gone.
Increasingly, Biden’s desire to make nice with the Iranians in order to keep global energy prices down ahead of the 2024 election is translating to a posture of ‘looking the other way’—and some analysts worry it’s too late to reestablish deterrence.
The Commander-in-Chief hasn’t so much as ordered a military response when American warships in waters off Yemen themselves come under direct attack. Again, this is what has deeply frustrated Pentagon leaders, who feel handcuffed. In its fresh commentary, WSJ points to the reality and immediate consequences of the US Navy coming under attack, but failing to respond or decisively hit back:
Recently the news broke that the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney had fended off several missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea. While Biden administration officials tried to frame the battle, for a battle it surely was, as the Carney’s defending nearby merchant ships, it seems clear that Iranian-supplied Houthis were targeting the Carney directly as well as the commercial ships it was accompanying.
This was only one of several recent assaults on American naval assets in the region. They have happened despite the presence of the Ford carrier strike group in the eastern Mediterranean and the Eisenhower strike group in the Gulf of Aden—a conventional level of naval deterrence that should have reduced aggressive activities by U.S. enemies. Instead, Iran attacked American ships and allies.
But still, if the last 20+ years of the so-called global war on terror has taught Washington anything, it is that it’s hard to deter a hardened and determined ragtag army of insurgents with things like giant naval assets sitting off a coast which are designed to fight bigger, conventional wars.
Ships burn as White House dithers…
The WSJ along with beltway think tanks worry this shows US naval power to be in decline. We should add that this is perhaps but one symptomatic indicator that US Empire itself is in decline and in retreat amid foreign policy failure after failure. Writes WSJ further:
These events show that American naval deterrence is failing, and a recent report from the Sagamore Institute concludes that it could soon evaporate.
The report, “Measuring and Modeling Naval Presence,” models the effect of various ships and combinations of ships across a mix of maritime regions. The model pitted an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the U.S. Navy’s current utility platform of choice, against a People’s Liberation Army Navy Luyang III destroyer in several locations ranging from the high seas to the waters approaching the Taiwan Strait. It suggested that the deterrent value of American Navy ships operating in close proximity to a determined adversary has recently declined.
As expected, the report ends with a call to further bloat Pentagon budgets, saying “The Navy’s budget, size and force architecture all need urgent attention from Congress if the U.S. is to preserve its ability to deter its enemies. Failure to do so imperils global trade as well as America’s place in the world and the safety of its people.”
The below headline also just about summarizes the situation perfectly well…
A $2M missile vs. a $2,000 drone: Pentagon worried over cost of Houthi attacks https://t.co/3ZBbRuVS7l
— POLITICO (@politico) December 19, 2023
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But, we should add, there’s many other factors too. For starters, Washington has chosen to rush headlong into foreign quagmire after foreign quagmire.
From bases in Iraq to Syria, to naval battle groups in the Mediterranean and Mideast waters, this adventurism overseas has ultimately given the Iranians and their allies easy targets as US troops and assets are ‘sitting ducks’ – placed conveniently close to hostile forces. In the case of Syria, the US is engaging in massive oil, gas, and wheat theft – as an outgrowth of its last decade of regime change efforts against Assad in Damascus.
92 now? Someone needs to check Lindsey Graham’s blood pressure…
US troops in Iraq and Syria ‘effectively sitting ducks’ as number of attacks rise to 92…https://t.co/Et9Ga33sVV pic.twitter.com/ZA2WL6vrSe
— Low Carb Geopolitics (@LowStudies) December 12, 2023
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Simultaneously, the US has essentially given Israel a blank check to execute its war in Gaza, and consistently refuses international efforts at reaching lasting, permanent ceasefire. Washington is left with no exit and no ultimately strategy, yet all the while wants to see oil prices kept down, and trade routes open. As is usual in the region, the US wants its proverbial cake and to eat it too.
* * *
And as a reminder of the prescient Rabobank commentary we just featured…
Concerningly, Marine Tracker data suggests that the launch of Operation Prosperity Guardian has not been sufficient to prevent freight companies from diverting their largest container ships away from the coast of Yemen. The loss of prestige for the global hegemon will not have gone unnoticed by America’s adversaries, who will be emboldened by any signs of weakness.
Adding to the concern has been the lukewarm response of major allies invited to join Operation Prosperity Guardian. Canada committed no ships and opted instead to only send a clutch of staff officers while Australia (an AUKUS ally who fought with the United States in Iraq, Vietnam and Korea) also refused US requests to send a warship to the Red Sea.
The Australian Government claims the refusal was due to a preference to focus on interests in the Asia-Pacific region, but local media has suggested that it is actually because none of Australia’s 7 frigates and 3 air-warfare destroyers are appropriately equipped to deter attacks from cheap Houthi (Iranian) drones for any length of time. If this really is the case, it is an astonishing gap in capability that highlights the extent to which conventional fleets face disruption from small, cheap and agile adversaries. That doesn’t bode well for the security of supply chains elsewhere.
Of course, the situation in the Red Sea has created winners as well as losers. The winners again appear to be Russia and China.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 20:00 - The End Of Social Democracy
The End Of Social Democracy
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,
A friend reminded me of a piece I wrote in 2017 that predicted the end of social democracy. This was three years before lockdowns, and it strikes me even now as a correct prediction. It is now under stress as never before. In fact, it seems doomed. But what comes after is still in question.
The settled system of social democracy emerged all over the Western world in the 20th century. We got rid of monarchical power (late 19th century), imposed direct rule via voting in large parts of the industrialized world (post-Great War), built up welfare states (1930s), and then assigned a managerial technocratic class to manage the bureaucracies, public finance, and global economics (post-WW2).
The eventual result was not liberalism from ages past or despotism traditionally understood but a combination of systems that the elites hoped would be stable, pleasing to the electorate, consistent with continued economic growth, and yield positive outcomes for health and population welfare overall.
The classic statement summing up this view in book form came in 1960: “The End of Ideology” by Daniel Bell.
A self-described “socialist in economics, liberal in politics, and conservative in culture,” he said that all wild-eyed visions of politics had come to an end. They would all be replaced by a system of rule by experts that everyone will love forever.
To be sure, the ultimate end-of-ideology system is freedom itself. Genuine liberalism (which probably shouldn’t be classified as an ideology at all) doesn’t require universal agreement on some system of public administration. It tolerates vast differences of opinion on religion, culture, behavioral norms, traditions, and personal ethics. It permits every form of speech, writing, association, and movement. Commerce, producing and trading toward living better lives, becomes the lifeblood. It only asks that people—including the state—not violate basic human rights.
But that is not the end of ideology that Bell and his generation tried to manufacture. What they wanted was what is today called the managerial state. Objective and scientific experts would be given power and authority to build and oversee large-scale state projects. These projects would touch on every area of life. They would build a cradle-to-grave welfare state, a regulatory apparatus to make all products and services perfect, labor law to create the perfect balance of capital and labor, huge infrastructure programs to inspire the public (highways! space! dams!), fine-tune macroeconomic life with Keynesian witchdoctors in charge, a foreign-policy regime that knew no limits of its power, and a central bank as the lender of last resort.
What Bell and that generation proposed wasn’t really the end of ideology. It was an invasive state, administered by elite bureaucrats, blessed by intellectuals, and given the cover of agreement by the universal right of the vote. Surely nothing can truly be oppressive if it takes place within the framework of democracy.
The whole thing turned out to be a pipe dream. Only a few years after the book appeared, ideology came roaring back with a vengeance, mostly in reaction to the ossification of public life, the draft for the Vietnam War, and the gradual diminution of economic prospects of the middle class.
The student movement rose up, and gained momentum in response to the violent attempts to suppress it. Technology gave rise to new forms of freedom that were inconsistent with the static and officious structure of public administration. Political consensus fell apart, and the presidency itself—supposed to be sacrosanct in the postwar period—was dealt a mighty blow with the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Government no longer held the high ground.
All that seemed to hold the old post-war social-democratic consensus together was the Cold War itself. Surely we should put aside our differences so long as our country faces an existential threat of Soviet communism. And that perception put off the unleashing of mass discontent until later. In a shocking and completely unexpected turn, the Cold War ended in 1989, and thus began a new attempt to impose a post-ideological age, if only to preserve what the elites had worked so hard to build.
This attempt also had its book-form definitive statement: “The End of History” by Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama wrote, “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”
It was Bell 2.0 and it didn’t last long either. Over the last 40 years, every institution of social democracy has been discredited, on both the Right and the Left, even as the middle class began to face a grim economic reality: progress in one generation was no longer a reliable part of the American dream. The last time a government program really seemed to work well was the moon landing. After that, government gradually just became a symbol of the worst unbearable and unworkable burden, especially following lockdowns and the discrediting of science itself.
I ended my 2017 piece with this sentence: “Heavily ideological protest movements began to spring up in all corners of American public life: the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Bernie, Trump, and whatever comes next.”
Well, that was only 6 years ago, and look how history has moved into a fast-forward trajectory. Now we know what was next. We had grim and alarming COVID lockdowns that did nothing to control a virus but did serve as a mass reminder of who is in charge: the state and its allies.
In fact, that might have been the point all along, a grand effort to impose shock and awe and settle the question once and for all. Democracy, we have learned, does not mean that the people get to elect their leaders. It means that we are assigned public figures for which we can vote, provided these individuals have no plans to disrupt the established ways of the ruling class.
At the same time, we are are still living with the deep contradictions of the social-democratic system, which I named in 2017:
1. Financial unsustainability. Many forms of redistribution only worked because they leveraged the present against the future. The problem with that model is that the future eventually arrives. Think of Social Security. It worked so long as the few in older groups could pillage the numerous in younger groups. Eventually the demographics flipped so that the many were on the receiving end and the few were on the paying end. Now young people know that they will be paying their whole lives for what will amount to a terrible return on investment. It was the same with Medicare, Medicaid, and other forms of fake “insurance” instituted by government. The welfare state generally took a bad turn, becoming a way of life rather than a temporary help. Subsidy programs like housing and student loans create unsustainable bubbles that burst and cause fear and panic.
2. Terminal inefficiency. All forms of government intervention presume a frozen world without change, and work to glue down institutions in a certain mode of operation. Public schools today operate largely as they did in the 1950s, and then suddenly they were shut down completely, as if to say: we don’t need them anyway. Antitrust regulations deal with industrial organization from years ago even as the market is moving forward; by the time the government announces its opinion, it hardly matters anymore. And you can make the same criticism of a huge number of programs: labor law, communications regulations, drug approvals and medical regulations, and so on. The costs grow and grow, while the service and results are ever worse. And that inefficiency was on display in spades during lockdowns: perhaps $10 trillion taken from taxpayers and given to elites with no discernible advantages for society.
3. Moral unconscionability. The bailouts after the 2008 financial crisis, followed by the much-worse lockdown payments, were indefensible to average people of all parties. How can you justify using all the powers of the federal government to feed trillions overall to well-connected elites who were the very perpetrators of the crisis? Capitalism is supposed to be about profits and losses, not private profits and socialized losses. The sheer injustice of it boggles the mind, but this only scratches the surface. How can you pillage average Americans of 40 percent of their income while blowing the money on programs that are either terminally inefficient, financially unsustainable, or just plain wrong? How can a government expect to administer a comprehensive spying program that violates any expectation of privacy on the part of citizens? Then there is the problem of wars lasting decades and leaving only destruction and guerilla armies in their wake.
What actually creates the tipping point in which social democracy morphs into something else? What displaces one failed paradigm with another? The answer lies with an even deeper problem with social democracy. You can discern it from this comment by F.A. Hayek in 1939. “Government by agreement is only possible provided that we do not require the government to act in fields other than those in which we can obtain true agreement.”
All public institutions that are politically stable—even if they are inefficient, offer low quality, or skirt the demands of basic morality—must at the minimum presume certain levels of homogeneity of opinion (at least) in the subject population; that is to say, they presume a certain minimum level of public agreement to elicit consent. You might be able to cobble this together in small countries with homogeneous populations, but it becomes far less viable in large countries with diverse populations.
Opinion diversity and big government create politically unstable institutions because majority populations begin to conflict with minority populations over the proper functions of government. Under this system, some group is always feeling used. Some group is always feeling put upon and exploited by the other. And this creates huge and growing tensions in the top two ideals of social democracy: government control and broadly available public services. Mass immigration intensifies this problem to the breaking point.
Hayek warned us in 1944: when agreement breaks down in the face of unviable public services and a discredited ruling class, strongmen come to the rescue. That truly seems where we are headed, whether the further centralization of power is from the left or the right.
It’s an exhausting cycle, one that we can avoid by a simple return to constitutional government.
The solution to avoid complete political chaos, economic collapse, and social anomie seems apparent but do we have the strength and ability to embrace it?
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 19:40 - Car Ownership Costs In America Are Skyrocketing
Car Ownership Costs In America Are Skyrocketing
Thinking of buying a vehicle soon? Rising car ownership costs might cause you to think again.
Owning a truck or car has become far more expensive than in the past, even as recently as three years ago.
In the following graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Pallavi Rao show, using data from the New York Times, how inflation has impacted various aspects of vehicle ownership, based on the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Used Car Prices Are Still Elevated in 2023
Unsurprisingly, the biggest increases are logged in the price of new and used vehicles, up 22% and 40% respectively.
Pandemic supply chain disruptions led to bottlenecks on vehicle deliveries, dramatically pushing up used vehicle prices in turn.
However, car ownership costs only continue to increase after the vehicle is acquired. Insurance costs are now nearly 30% higher compared to 2020, along with maintenance and repair. If a part has to be replaced, that’s another 20% price increase. Even parking and tolls are up 12%.
And of course, for most vehicle owners we also have to consider the price of gas, which has grown nearly three-fold since 2020.
Finally, financing costs, which have risen steeply in conjunction with rapid rate hikes over the last year, are weighing on America’s trillion dollar credit bill. Auto loans are the second-highest monthly payment for U.S. households after mortgages.
Put together, the AAA estimates the annual cost of owning a new car in 2023 has reached $12,182, up 14% from last year.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 19:20 - Israeli Firm Pitches Beachfront Real Estate In Leveled Gaza
Israeli Firm Pitches Beachfront Real Estate In Leveled Gaza
Authored by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,
Palestinians and their supporters this week condemned a proposal by an Israeli real estate developer specializing in the construction of illegal settlements to build beachfront homes for Jewish colonists over the bombed-out ruins of Gaza.
“A house on the beach is not a dream,” reads an advertisement published by Harey Zahav—an Israeli company notorious for building settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank—that drew international attention following last week’s Practical Preparation for Gaza Settlement Conference in Tel Aviv.
The ad depicts an artist’s rendering of luxury homes superimposed over an actual photograph of a Gaza neighborhood destroyed by Israeli attacks—which have killed nearly 20,000 people while displacing over 85% of the embattled strip’s 2.3 million people since early October.
While the Israeli government funds settler organizations, Harey Zahav’s proposal is not believed to be state-supported. However, critics noted that Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel has drafted a plan to forcibly expel Gazans into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and that a separate proposal by the right-wing think tank Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy declared that “there is currently a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip.”
Such plans have been compared with the Nakba ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs—by deadly violence and forced displacement—from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
“An Israeli real estate firm is already cashing in on genocide, churning out blueprints to build Israeli homes in Gaza on land leveled by bombs,” activist Sarah Wilkinson said Tuesday on social media.
Harey Zahav’s proposal comes amid statements by Israeli political and military leaders that critics say incite or advocate genocide of Palestinians. Evem prior to the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, numerous Israeli officials called for the recolonization of a Gaza Strip from which some or all of the Palestinian residents—around two-thirds of them the descendants of Nakba refugees—have been removed.
🇵🇸 Before and after. Al-Bahr Street, Gaza. pic.twitter.com/KTo5xkqDuZ
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 20, 2023
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While Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, the besieged enclave is still considered occupied under international law.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 19:00 - Biden's Border Crisis Triggers Chaos Across America's $28.5 Billion Food Export Market
Biden’s Border Crisis Triggers Chaos Across America’s $28.5 Billion Food Export Market
The number of global supply chains being disrupted, whether the drought-stricken Panama Canal or the conflict-torn Red Sea, continues to rise.
This week, news of the Biden administration’s southern border crisis continuing to spiral out of control comes as no surprise. However, what’s alarming is the closure of international rail border crossings in Texas that could disrupt food trade between the US and Mexico.
Bloomberg reports more than 40 US food companies and associations have penned a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, requesting the federal government to immediately reopen the El Paso and Eagle Pass international rail crossings.
Both rail crossings were closed earlier this week by the US Customs and Border Protection because of President Biden’s disastrous open southern border crisis, which led to tens of thousands of migrants, if not more, using freight trains to traverse Mexico north to the US.
Griff Jenkins reports “tens of thousands of migrants” in Mexico 3 hours south of the Piedras Negras border crossing of Texas.
Many migrants are on the train or waiting for the next one.
Most of these people will soon enter the US illegally.pic.twitter.com/ZApFArTj0H
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) December 13, 2023
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“The crossing closures are causing exports to be lost,” the coalition said in the letter obtained by Bloomberg.
The letter, signed by the National Grain and Feed Association and the National Corn Growers Association, said the $28.5 billion market for US agricultural exports could be severely disrupted if a prolonged shutdown of the border is seen.
They said a logjam has formed on rail networks in at least six states due to the border crossing shutdowns.
“We have also heard of customers in Mexico telling US suppliers they will begin to look to other countries if the US cannot provide a resilient and reliable supply chain,” the letter said.
The letter warned: “Each day the crossings are closed we estimate almost 1 million bushels of grain exports are potentially lost along with export potential for many other agricultural products.”
Radical progressives in the White House who have championed open southern borders through Biden’s first term are now sparking what appears to be the beginnings of supply chain chaos that is only hurting American farmers.
None of this would be happening if Democrats in the White House enforced ‘common sense’ law and order on the southern border. But it has become quite apparent that open borders, flooding blue cities with millions of illegals, is what Democrats wanted right before the incoming presidential election cycle (read: here).
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 18:40 - Growing Number Of GOP Candidates Pledge To Disavow COVID-19 Vaccine And Big Pharma
Growing Number Of GOP Candidates Pledge To Disavow COVID-19 Vaccine And Big Pharma
Authored by Matthew Lysiak via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
COVID-19 and concerns over the influence of pharmaceutical companies on elected officials continue to be a hot-button issue for candidates vying for political office as a movement that began earlier this month on social media garners increasing support.
Pfizer and Moderna bivalent COVID-19 vaccines are readied for use at a clinic in Richmond, Va., in a Nov. 17, 2022, file image. (Steve Helber/AP Photo) Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a practitioner in Texas and founder of Coalition of Health Freedom, has used her platform on X, to call on candidates in races across the country to make clear their position on whether the COVID-19 vaccine should be pulled off the market and to publicly pledge that they will not accept campaign donations from pharmaceutical interests.
“Want to help? It’s primary season. Let’s replace the politicians who aren’t protecting their constituents,” Dr. Bowden said in a Dec. 17 post on X. “Ask your representatives … publicly whether they stand with 17,000+ doctors to support pulling the Covid shots off the market.”
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The movement appears to be gathering momentum. In total, Dr. Bowden says 26 candidates and elected officials from 11 states have publicly signed on, stating that the shots must be pulled from the market.
David Lowe, a combat veteran and current stay-at-home dad who is running in the Texas Republican Primary for State Representative of District 91, told The Epoch Times that he was compelled to make the pledge out of principle.
“It is pretty clear that the numbers and the data behind the vaccine were not accurate and as a result we are looking at what is probably one of the greatest blunders in modern medical history,” said Mr. Lowe. “We started enforcing injections on people without having accurate information and it ended up costing lives.”
“This whole episode has been a dark blotch on our country and there needs to be change and that starts with our elected representatives,” added Mr. Lowe.
John Perez, who is running in the GOP primary for the House District 133 seat in Texas, cited the outsized influence pharmaceutical companies have had on the political system.
“I pledge right here and right now that I have not and will not accept donations or in-kind contributions from Big Pharma PACs or Big Pharma companies,” Mr. Perez wrote in a Dec 17 post on X, responding to Dr. Bowden’s challenge. “It comes down to individual choice and freedom – not the bottom line of big drug companies enabled by egregious government overreach.”
A poll conducted on Dr. Bowden’s social media account of her nearly 300k followers cited more than 94 percent of respondents answering that they would be “more likely” to support a candidate who did not accept money from pharmaceutical companies.
While the poll would presumably be skewed towards more right-leaning vaccine skeptics, it could prove relevant in a GOP primary in which political forecasters are predicting a number of tight races.
Candidates in New Hampshire, Kentucky, and Florida have also joined the movement with more expected as the message continues to spread across social media, according to Dr. Bowden, who says she began the call to action to expose politicians’ true interests.
“If you look at the data on the uptake of the latest COVID shot, it’s clear that most politicians are no longer getting this shot and are no longer giving them to their kids,” said Dr. Bowden.
“It is quite hypocritical; if it isn’t safe enough for their kids or themselves, how is it safer for their constituents?”
“Thousands have died from the COVID shot and no one is doing anything about it,” said Dr. Bowden.
A child receives a dose of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Fairfax County Government Center in Annandale, Va., on Nov. 4, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) The past two years have seen the COVID-19 vaccines become mired in controversy. The original COVID-19 vaccines were taken by more than 80 percent of Americans after officials pledged that the shots would be effective in both preventing contraction and stopping the spread of the virus.
However, once it was revealed that the shots didn’t work as promised, interest in the subsequent booster shots decreased dramatically.
Vaccines could also be attributed to widespread reports of negative health outcomes believed to have been caused by the shots. COVID-19 vaccines have been named the primary suspect in over 1.5 million adverse event reports, according to the FDA Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database. The numbers could be even higher. An FDA-funded study out of Harvard found that VAERS cases represent fewer than 1 percent of vaccine adverse events that actually occur.
Mr. Lowe says that while GOP voters have a diverse set of concerns, including crime, the border, and inflation, just because COVID-19 is off the front pages of the newspapers doesn’t mean it is out of mind for the constituents he is hoping to serve in his district.
“Conservatives and everyday votes have a growing concern about the vaccines and the influence of pharmaceutical companies on our political process,” said Mr. Lowe.
“We need to acknowledge that there is an issue and that it is something that is going to affect our country for years to come,” he said.
“A lot of people on the other side of this want to move on, but if we don’t take action the next time we have a so-called pandemic what is going to stop us from committing the same errors all over again? Every person running for political office needs to take the pledge.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 18:20 - Congratulations To Everyone From Illinois Who Left
Congratulations To Everyone From Illinois Who Left
By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk
For the 10th consecutive year, Illinois lost population. Only West Virginia was worse.
Illinois Population Drops 10 Consecutive Years
The Illinois Policy Institute reports 10th Consecutive Year of Population Decline.
Surveys of those who have left the state – where taxes are not a response option – showed the major reasons Illinoisans have chosen to leave the state have been for better housing and employment opportunities, both of which have been made worse by poor public policy in Illinois.
High taxes were the No. 1 reason why Illinoisans considered leaving the state. Polling from NPR Illinois and the University of Illinois found 61% of Illinoisans thought about moving out of state in 2019, and the No. 1 reason was taxes. The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute found 47% of Illinoisans wanted to leave the state, and “taxes are the single biggest reason people want to leave” with 27% of respondents citing taxes as the motive for departing in 2016. More recent polling conducted by Echelon Insights in 2023 substantiated those sentiments.
A 10th year of residents leaving Illinois should be a wake-up call to the state’s leaders, who refuse to adopt policies that would make it easier for residents to stay in Illinois. Reforms that would ease Illinoisans’ tax burden or reduce arduous business regulations are needed to make the state more affordable and stop the departures.
Expecting Change is Madness
Anyone who thinks Illinois will change is delusional. The only escape from Illinois madness is by leaving Illinois. Just don’t go to states equally bad if not worse, especially California, but also New York and New Jersey.
Flashback 2019: Escape Illinois – Get The Hell Out Now, We Are
On October 5, 2019 I wrote Escape Illinois – Get The Hell Out Now, We Are. In July of 2020 we left.
I noted then that It Takes 3 Weeks to Escape Illinois. The reason it took three weeks is that’s how long it took to get a one-way U-Haul.
“Everyone is leaving. No one is coming,” a U-Haul agent told us.
To those who have escaped, congratulations.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 17:40 - Fat Leonard, Who Filmed Orgies Involving Senior Navy Admirals, Extradited To The US By Venezuela
Fat Leonard, Who Filmed Orgies Involving Senior Navy Admirals, Extradited To The US By Venezuela
As part of a prisoner exchange in which Joe Biden granted clemency to a prominent moneyman for President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela released 10 detained Americans as well as the man at the center of historic Navy bribery scandal: Fat Leonard, a military contractor known for organizing and filming orgies involving senior U.S. Navy admirals, is on his way back to San Diego to face sentencing for corruption over a year after he fled to Venezuela. It’s one of the U.S.’s worst ever national security breaches.
Fat Leonard”, mastermind of biggest ever US military bribery scheme, back in US custody – National & International News The White House confirmed the deal had taken place after days of mounting speculation amid fears that a fragile agreement could break down or change at any moment.
As the WSJ notes, the completed trade marked a breakthrough in the Biden administration’s rapprochement efforts with Caracas, which has become a key source of marginal oil for Biden in the critical 2024 election year, as well as one of the biggest hostage deals the US has carried out with a hostile foreign government.
Leonard Francis, a Malaysian businessman given his nickname for his 6-foot-2, 350-pound frame, had fled the U.S. last year just weeks before he was scheduled to be sentenced for his role in an extensive corruption scheme.
Fat Leonard and his private army on his private warship. The “Fat Leonard” scandal cost the U.S. tens of millions of dollars and the resulting federal investigation gutted the Navy’s leadership ranks in the Asia-Pacific region. Francis had pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribing dozens of Naval officers with lavish dinners, orgies and cash, and cooperated with prosecutors for several years, to mixed results.
Fat Leonard, who according to some “effectively controlled the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet“, had spent millions of dollars bribing officers of the Seventh Fleet and in exchange those officers made sure the U.S. Navy’s most powerful ships sailed into ports controlled by Francis’ company. When the ships docked, Fat Leonard overcharged for basic services such as fuel, food and sewage.
U.S. federal agents arrested Fat Leonard and Navy officers implicated in his scam, and the Justice Department spent years digging through a treasure trove of emails, receipts and phone records. On March 14, 2017, the department handed down an indictment that charged eight more Navy officers — including Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless — with taking part in the conspiracy.
The 79-page indictment was an “incredible document”. The word prostitutes appears 28 times and the charges include a detailed account of Fat Leonard’s bribes. The Malaysian kingpin ran “a rotating carousel of prostitutes,” threw wild sex parties and even hosted an orgy that involved memorabilia of famed U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, “Francis hosted and paid for a lavish party and the services of prostitutes in the MacArthur Suite of the Manila Hotel, attended by [some of the Cool Kids], among others. During the party, historical memorabilia related to Gen. Douglas MacArthur were used by the participants in sexual acts.”
That room in the Manila Hotel was the room MacArthur used to command operations in the Pacific Theater during World War II. It’s got his desk, his chair and various artifacts that once belonged the famed general. Yes, including one of his famous corncob pipes. These Navy officers allegedly fucked prostitutes all over that room and brought MacArthur’s former possessions into the mix.
That’s not all. In late May 2008, Fat Leonard booked the Presidential Suite at the Makati Shangri-La in Manila.
“In this venue,” the indictment stated. “Francis hosted a raging multi-day party, with a rotating carousel of prostitute in attendance, during which the conspirators drank all of the Dom Perignon available at the Shangri-La. Room and alcohol charges born by Francis exceeded $50,000”
Yes, the party got so crazy, that the Lion King’s Harem drank every single bottle of Dom Perignon in the entire hotel. A few days later, one of the participants emailed Fat Leonard to tell him, “I finally detoxed myself from Manila. That was a crazy couple of days. It’s been awhile since I’ve done 36 hours of straight drinking!!!”
In a podcast published in 2021, Francis claimed he kept secretly recorded videotapes of sex between Navy officers and sex workers he’d paid for. “I’m not making porn,” Francis said on the podcast. “It’s always great to see people when they’re drunk, what they’re capable of doing.”
A marquee trial of Navy officers allegedly corrupted by Francis initially resulted in felony convictions last year, but prosecutors ultimately downgraded the charges to misdemeanors in part over Francis’ actions that had undermined the case. Francis ultimately escaped from house arrest in San Diego in 2016, and was stopped in Venezuela a few weeks later while he was en route to Russia.
* * *
Senior administration officials described the swap as 10 Americans and a fugitive from justice in exchange for one prisoner in US custody. The deal underscores a willingness by US officials to make uncomfortable trade-offs for the freedom of American citizens held abroad.
The Biden administration swapped one priority national-security case for another, in allowing someone accused of illegally moving hundreds of millions of dollars for the Venezuelan regime to walk free in exchange for a fugitive Malaysian businessman who had corrupted the U.S. Navy in the Pacific.
“Reuniting wrongfully detained Americans with their loved ones has been a priority for my Administration since day one. As is the return to the United States of fugitives from justice,” Biden said in a statement.
The decision to release Alex Saab, who had been facing trial for money laundering in Miami federal court, senior U.S. administration officials said, constituted a difficult compromise that they also said could help coax Maduro into restoring democracy in the troubled South American nation. “It’s a solid foundation for us to build upon,” one U.S. official said.
Saab, a Colombian-born businessman and financier for Maduro, had been in U.S. custody since October 2021. The U.S. had previously undertaken a 16-month battle to get him extradited from the West African island nation of Cape Verde.
Critics of the Biden administration’s push to secure such deals contend that they play into the hands of authoritarian leaders and encourage rogue states to take more hostages. The Justice Department has often been opposed to prisoner-exchange deals by the U.S. that appear to cut against its efforts, though the White House ultimately makes any call on such deals.
Wednesday’s deal included the release of six Americans deemed by the State Department to be wrongfully detained in Venezuela, a designation reflecting that the U.S. considers them to have been held at least in part because of their American passports, as well as four other U.S. citizens for whom Washington had not reached that conclusion.
U.S. officials said the released Americans included Joseph Cristella, Eyvin Hernandez, Jerrel Kenemore, and Savoi Wright, all of whom were considered by the State Department to have been wrongfully detained in Venezuela. The officials didn’t name the others in the group, citing privacy concerns. Among the Americans known to be detained in Venezuela are former Green Berets Luke Denman and Airan Berry, who have been serving 20-year prison sentences in Caracas for joining a ragtag group of Venezuelan dissidents in a botched 2020 invasion that aimed to topple Maduro.
In addition to Wednesday’s prisoner exchange, the U.S. said it negotiated other concessions from Venezuela. They included the release of 20 Venezuelan political prisoners and the lifting of arrest warrants recently issued by Maduro against aides of Maria Corina Machado, the opposition’s likely candidate in presidential elections that are supposed to be held in 2024.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 17:20 - Thousands Of Doctors Take Legal Action Against Transgender Mandate
Thousands Of Doctors Take Legal Action Against Transgender Mandate
Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A group of 3,000 doctors and medical professionals is suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over a mandate that broadens the term “sex” in federal civil rights statutes to include “gender identity” and “sexual orientation.”
(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock) The group argues that the rule, among other things, forces physicians who see Medicaid patients or receive federal funding to provide “gender-affirming” care to children who want to transition to the opposite sex. This includes prescribing hormone treatments and puberty blockers and performing surgery such as removing girls’ breasts.
The doctors challenging the rule say it will force them to provide that kind of treatment, even if they think it’s medically wrong for the patient or if it goes against their religious beliefs. That makes it unconstitutional, they say.
As such, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the American College of Pediatricians, an adolescent care obstetrics and gynecology doctor, and Catholic Medical Associates.
The lawsuit, filed on Aug. 26, 2021, asks the court to block HHS from penalizing doctors for refusing to provide gender-altering treatments to children for any reason.
The case initially was dismissed by a lower court when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion claiming that it would honor doctors’ constitutional right to refuse such treatments.
However, ADF attorney Chris Schandevel said his clients worry that a dismissed case could mean DOJ officials could reverse the department’s stance at any time. So he’s seeking an injunction to specifically prevent HHS or any other federal agency from disciplining doctors who refuse to give children such treatments for any reason.
The 6th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati heard oral arguments on the case on Dec. 6. The appellate court has jurisdiction over federal appeals from cases originating in Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee, and Ohio.
The court’s decision could take up to three months. If denied, plaintiffs could seek review from the U.S. Supreme Court.
A person wearing rainbow socks stands on a stairway during a drag show at a brewery in Louisville, Ky., on June 4, 2021. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images) By Order of the President
The HHS mandate in May 2021 followed an executive order issued four months earlier by President Joe Biden. The order expanded the interpretation of “sex” beyond a person’s biology, to include a person’s declared “gender identity” or “sexual orientation.”
“Every person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love,” President Biden’s order states. “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.
“Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access healthcare and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination. All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Federal agencies indicated that this interpretation would extend into discrimination clauses in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). And that could require doctors to provide treatment to children and adults who identify as transgender and want to undergo a “transition” to a new gender identity, Mr. Schandevel said.
The mandate could apply to any health care providers who receive federal money, such as those accepting patients on Medicaid or with ACA health insurance coverage, also known as Obamacare.
President Joe Biden signs executive orders on health care as with Vice President Kamala Harris looks on, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Jan. 28, 2021. (Mandal Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) This “gender-affirming” care would extend to pediatric services and potentially bring about disciplinary action for physicians refusing for any reason to provide that care to children, Mr. Schandevel said.
The DOJ filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on July 19, 2022, claiming that the HHS hasn’t mandated that health care providers “perform all kinds of gender transition services, even providers who have religious objections” and that the lawsuit begins on a “false premise” by suggesting that such a mandate exists.
HHS attorneys assert in the motion that their interpretation of President Biden’s executive order means “sex discrimination extends to gender-identity discrimination.”
But, they write, this doesn’t indicate that doctors opposed to providing gender-altering treatments “fall within the scope of unlawful gender-identity discrimination, and HHS has consistently affirmed that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and other religious defenses may be raised, on a case-by-case basis, to a charge of discrimination.”
But for Mr. Schandevel and the doctors he represents, that’s not enough.
“Outside of the courtroom, in their public statements, the administration has given every indication that they plan to enforce this gender-identity mandate as broadly as possible,” he said.
“They have given every indication that they plan to come after doctors, like our doctors, that we’re representing in this case.”
Mr. Schandevel cites a notice dated March 2, 2022, from the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that invites patients and parents to file complaints with the OCR if they feel they have been denied “gender-affirming” care.
“As a law enforcement agency, OCR is investigating and, where appropriate, enforcing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act cases involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in accordance with all applicable law,” the notice reads.
The Department of Health and Human Services building in Washington on July 22, 2019. (Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images) “This means that if people believe they have been discriminated against in a health program or activity that receives financial assistance from HHS, they can file a complaint.”
Mr. Schandevel said that doctors who ADF represents shouldn’t have to just take the DOJ at its word and just hope that it won’t violate the doctors’ rights.
“We should be able to get a court to say that their rights are protected,” He said.
“Our doctors have every reason to fear that if they say no, that they’re not going to [perform a sex-change operation] that the federal government is going to try to take away their federal funding based on that conscientious practice of medicine.”
Concerned Pediatricians
Pediatricians represented by Mr. Schandevel are wary of “gender-affirming” care for children for reasons beyond personal convictions, he said.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatrician and pediatric endocrinologist with five decades of experience, said he read “the broad medical literature across the spectrum on the subject” and came to a decision that he can live with his code of medical ethics.
Dr. Van Meter contended that the research used to validate pediatric gender-altering treatments is often “cherry-picked”—researchers make conclusions that don’t support the data collected.
Proponents of helping children try to alter their gender identity argue that access to such childhood procedures lowers the rate of suicide among minors who identify as transgender.
They often cite a 2020 study, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that purportedly establishes that link.
A child walks on Waikiki beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Sept. 6, 2001. (Mike Nelson/AFP via Getty Images) A 2019 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry studied the same phenomenon—the alleged lowered risks of suicide for children receiving “gender-affirming” care.
In that study’s conclusions, researchers argued that children receiving gender-altering procedures have much higher levels of anxiety and mood disorders before treatment than other children. They wrote that these procedures, such as hormone blockers or surgery, lowered the need for anxiety and mood care once the child received treatment affirming a new gender.
However, that study drew ire from other researchers, who sent letters to the journal’s editors challenging the statistical methodology employed in the study.
“Upon request, the authors reanalyzed the data,” according to a correction published by the American Journal of Psychiatry on Aug. 1, 2020. “The results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison.”
Dr. Van Meter said he believes that “the scientific validity of what they’re basing their treatment protocol on is based on so little valid science that it must cease and desist immediately.”
The Swedish Approach
Dr. Van Meter also pointed to recent changes to the official position of the governments of Sweden and Norway on the issue.
Sweden, which has had broad tolerance for the LGBT community, recently reversed its previous official position on “gender-affirming” care for minors through its National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW), saying “the risks outweigh the benefits at this point.”
“Uncertain science and newly acquired knowledge means that the National Board of Health and Welfare now recommends restraint when it comes to hormone treatment,” a translation of the NBHW announcement reads.
Read the rest here…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 17:00 - Banks' Usage Of The Fed's Bailout Facility Soars To New Record High
Banks’ Usage Of The Fed’s Bailout Facility Soars To New Record High
For the second week in a row, money-market funds saw outflows, down $16.1BN this week,
Source: Bloomberg
Once again, institutional funds were responsible for all the outflows (-$26BN) while retail funds continued their streak on inflows (+$10BN) that is unbroken since April…
Source: Bloomberg
In a breakdown for the week to Dec. 20, government funds – which invest primarily in securities like Treasury bills, repurchase agreements and agency debt – saw assets fall to $4.79 trillion, a $24 billion decline.
Prime funds, which tend to invest in higher-risk assets such as commercial paper, meanwhile, saw assets rise to $955 billion, a $7.66 billion increase.
“This is a turning point and you do start to see money move out of money markets, into riskier assets, into term rates to lock in higher rates,” Jeffrey Rosenberg, a portfolio manager at BlackRock Financial Management said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
“As cash rates start to come down, you’re penalized in 2024 for holding cash because the rates and the prospect of the rates is to go lower.”
So, is this divergence starting to narrow?
Source: Bloomberg
Notably, the exodus from The Fed’s reverse repo facility has stalled in recent days
Source: Bloomberg
Following the prior week’s unexpected $2.2BN rise, The Fed’s balance sheet resumed its shrinkage, down $15.5BN last week to a new cycle low…
Source: Bloomberg
Usage of The Fed’s BTFP bank bailout facility soared again last week, jumping $7.5BN to $131BN…
Source: Bloomberg
But Regional Bank shares still don’t care…
Source: Bloomberg
While this is, at first glance, a worry – bans are borrowing more to fill their balance sheet loss holes – there is another possibility.
An arbitrage for banks is growing more attractive thanks to traders who are betting the Fed will aggressively cut interest rates in 2024.
The rate on the Fed’s Bank Term Funding Program – which allows banks and credit unions to borrow funds for up to one year, pledging US Treasuries and agency debt as collateral valued at par – is the one-year overnight index swap rate plus 10 basis points.
That figure is currently 4.88%, down from 5.17% on Dec. 13.
For institutions that have an account at the Fed, they can borrow from the BTFP at 4.88% and park that at the central bank to earn 5.40% – the interest on reserve balances.
The 52bp spread matches the widest level since the Fed introduced the facility to support a struggling banking system after the collapse of California’s Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in New York.
Finally, equity market caps continue to soar after recoupling with bank reserves at The Fed (though the stalling in the drawdown of the RRP has slowed the expansion this week)…
Source: Bloomberg
Zooming in, it’s clear what drove the meltup, and something just changed…
Of course, with The Fed’s massive pivot yesterday, sending yields plummeting, regional bank balance sheets may be rescued… for now. Until the next wave of inflation hits…
Tyler Durden
Thu, 12/21/2023 – 16:40
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